


Paper Mates

by Donvex



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Slow Burn, a side of stenbrough, art student!eddie, but really minimal, guitarist!richie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-05 03:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12786447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donvex/pseuds/Donvex
Summary: The quiet nights are the worst, when Richie has no one but himself, caffeine, and tv show characters. It's endless isolation and practicing, as if that will somehow prove himself. The good days, though? The days where he gets to meet up with Stan for weekly brunch? The days where he and Mike and the rest of their band get to perform for the grimiest people in Philadelphia? Those days are worth living for. The music, the smoke, the bullshit. It's almost perfect, and definitely worth being alive for.Then Stan's boyfriend is transferring, and bringing with him the cutest human being Tozier has ever seen, and oh god is hefucked.(But then, maybe that's just him preparing for a whole lot more of the good days.)





	1. Dim Lights

Basement gigs always seem so dark. The entire room smells like smoke and there’s never sufficient lighting. Mostly it’s just strands of small bulbs hanging from the wooden rafters, a few of the broken ones taped over with electrical wire, and the suspicious couches are covered in blankets. People group together in packs, some armed with plastic cups and others with empty hands to dance. If you can call  _ that _ dancing.

Basement shows are nothing like real gigs, not in the slightest.

Cigarettes pass from mouth to mouth. As soon as you hand one off, it’s gone, but there’s always another floating around. The people are strange, flawed, definitely the kind of people that should  _ only _ show up to places that are almost entirely dark. They crowd together, shoulders to shoulders, others laying their limbs across one another on the previously mentioned sketchy couches, as if doing that would save space. It’s a tight squeeze, to say the least. Cramped and, admittedly, not great.

But Richie fucking loves them anyway.

“So, we’re about to perform our last song for the night-”

Someone amicably yells from the crowd, “Shut your mouth, Tozier! Stop talking between tracks!” 

Richie flips them off with a huge smile on his face, because he  _ lives _ for this. He fucking loves basement shows, loves the interaction between him and the audience despite the stage being between them. Real gigs are great, but shitty gigs like this hold a special place in his heart, and remind him of where he started. No one here has any pretenses, no one cares what they look like, and everyone here knows each other. They feel comfortable hating on each other.

Which means they have no problem yelling back at other people in the audience.

“Shut it, dipshit! It’s dedication time.”

And  _ fuck _ , if that doesn’t warm Richie’s heart. They’ve been doing this long enough that everyone here knows his shitty shtick, knows that he’s always gonna dedicate their last song to someone out in the crowd. Why?

It’s just fucking fun.

Plus, he almost always scores a date afterwards. It’s a tradition, almost. Nevermind that a majority of the boys are one night stands, and any relationships he forms with the girls don’t make it past day four. There’s a reason musicians have that god awful reputation, he guesses. If he plays into it, a little, he really doesn’t mean to. He honestly would  _ love _ to have someone that actually wanted him as a stable constant in their life. He just isn’t good at keeping his mouth shut.

But then, he’s still in this moment, here on stage, and there’s no room for existentialism. It’s just him, his band, dark lights, and adrenaline. He can’t play favorites, either, so he laughs and flips off the other person yelling - and gets several middle fingers back. He counts four, and he’s really not sure where all these hands are flying from.

“Come on, guys. This is from the bottom of my heart-” there’s more laughter, and possibly someone attempting to throw a plastic cup at him, but it just ends up on the floor in a puddle. “I’m serious about this one, you guys. This song means a lot to me.” He scans the room, quiet eyes darting from face to face, until he settles on a pretty face. Green hair with black roots, thrown up into a topknot. A ripped baseball tee hanging off her shoulders, jeans covered in patches. She’s standing just close enough to the stage to be considered part of the active audience. Richie never learned her name, but he’s seen her at these shows enough that he considers her familiar - and is sure she knows just how these things go.

“Green topknot, this one’s for you, babe.”

And would you look at that, more middle fingers. But she’s smiling, and it’s radiant, and Richie feels ready to take on the fucking world with this last song.

━━━━━

Richie doesn’t end up getting a date that night.

It’s not that he minds when he doesn’t. Sometimes it’s almost a relief, actually. No date means he and Mike get to part from the rest of the band and go back to Mike’s place after, guitar across Richie’s back and bass across Mike’s, to watch cartoons.

It’s not that he minds when he doesn’t, because it’s all fun and games, anyway. He knows it’s all a joke just as much as they do, maybe even more so.

It’s just that he can’t help but wonder what about him wasn’t good enough.

They’re just through the door, still moving around to take off their shoes and settle down, when Mike forcibly pushes the conversation away from Richie’s conspiracy theory on why decorated band aids  _ always  _ heal cuts faster than plain beige ones.

“You heard Big Bill is transferring in a week’s time?”

Richie’s eyes light up at this. He’s been  _ dying _ for more information. “Oh, I heard. Stan won’t stop talking about it, and somehow I  _ still  _ know nothing about it.” 

“You know Stan. If he doesn’t think it’s his place to say, he won’t.”

“But I’m his best friend!”

“I think Bill’s got you beat, Rich.”

“That’s not fair. Boyfriends shouldn’t count.”

Mike responds with warm laughter.

“So is Bill moving in with Stan, then?”

“Nah, he’s dorming at his school. University of the Arts? He wants to be more immersed in the community that he’s gonna have to rely on.”

By this point Mike is sitting on the couch, posture relaxed and arm thrown over the top. He looks like he’s sinking into the cushions, ready to pass out right there. Richie, though? Richie looks like a fucking goblin. His feet are on the couch instead of his ass, and just the balls of his feet, too. He’s crouched, elbows leaning on the armrest behind him, head tilted up while he squints his eyes at the ceiling.

“And Stan the Man is gonna let him room with some rando art freak? Eighty percent of the people at that school smoke, Mike, and Stan can’t  _ stand _ the smell of smoke. You know that’s why he doesn’t come to our shows anymore, right? It has nothing to do with his work load.”

“It has  _ some _ to do with his workload, Rich. Besides, Bill’s moving down with a friend from Maine. They’re transferring into the same school to dorm together.”

“See, Bill? That makes sense. He’s moving here for Stanley.” Mike interjects that he’s got more reasons for moving here than just Stan, but Richie pushes forwards, completely ignoring his friend. At least, ignoring him as best he can while staring at him and talking directly to him. “But this other kid? Seems like a lot, moving all the way here just so Bill has someone to dorm with. What gives?”

“They’re best friends. Besides, everyone’s got something to run from. Maybe he was just waiting for someone to give him the chance to escape.” There’s a knowing glint in Mike’s eyes, something sad and resigned, and Richie forgets sometimes that Mike grew up in Maine, too. Out on a farm, as far from the city as it got.

He doesn’t like that look.

“Fuck, Mike, how do you know so much? How do you get Stan to talk?”

“The same way I get you to shut up.”

“Wha- what does that even  _ mean _ , Mike. Mike!” Richie tries to grab Mike’s hand, but Mike shakes him off and stands. “Fuck, if I wasn’t so proud of you, you’d be dead by now, Hanlon.”

“Your threats are useless. I’ve seen you in a fight, Richie. You’re all bones and elbows. I know how to take you down.”

“Damnit. Two to zero.”

“Come on, man, get outta my apartment. I wanna sleep.”

━━━━━

Richie is exhausted. It’s still early September, so the weather hasn’t quite reached chilly yet, but at nightfall his black hoodie really isn’t enough to keep him comfortably warm.

He’s walking back from Mike’s, hands shoved in his pockets, back aching. There’s the temptation to go home and pass out, give in to stiff limbs and frozen toes, but he and Mike never got to watch cartoons.

And Richie loves cartoons.

He ducks into a twenty-four hour convenience shop on the way home and picks up a ninety-nine cent drink. He considers buying food, too - some kind of frozen dinner, or maybe just a bag of beef jerky to give him something to chew - but it’s late enough at this point that he shouldn’t be eating again.

He pretends it has nothing to do with money when he pockets the single penny handed back to him, and focuses instead on mentally preparing himself for a night of lying awake, drained and unable to sleep.


	2. Saturday Brunch

At some point in the night, ( or does some time past 5:00 am count as morning? ) Richie finds himself in the shower. He thinks he’s there because it’s warm, and that’s enough. It’s warm. The simple term plays in his head on loop,  _ warm _ , but he can’t crawl into bed and fall into a blissful slumber surrounded by blankets, so he settles for water and atmosphere and movement.

 

He drops his rings onto the counter, even though he has a glass jar clearly marked for his jewelry. It’s filled with quarters instead, and pencils, and everything else that he forgets to pull from his pockets before going to the bathroom to shower.

 

He doesn’t empty his pockets this time, though. It’s mechanical, the way he drops his clothes and steps into the spray.  _ Unsatisfying.  _ He only stands there for a minute, maybe two, before he’s dropped down to sit in the bathtub. The shower spray is in his eyes, but it doesn’t matter. It’s something.  _ It has to be something, because if it’s not enough, nothing will be. _

 

Mostly he just aches. He doesn’t have to check his phone for the time. He knows it’s well past six am, and he knows that he should never have allowed himself to stay up this late to begin with. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t his fault, what matters is that he’s there, sitting in his shower, counting down the time until he has to force his body to wake.

 

He can feel himself slowing down, though. He thinks, briefly, about masterbating - just to do something. But he’s not aroused, and he’s exhausted, and just the idea is actually altogether unpleasant. He fumbles with the faucet instead and turns his shower into a bath, sitting back against the wall and watching the water rise above his toes.

 

_ There’s no point. _

 

It’s warm, objectively. But it isn’t comforting. It does nothing to break through the numb shell that seems to have wrapped itself around him. He thinks it might be better to shut the bath off, but doing so doesn’t prompt him to move. He just sits, his thick curls bleeding cold water onto his back. He’s acutely aware of his breathing - shallow, sickly breaths that come and go unevenly. The water drains past his feet, and Richie knows the tub was barely filled to begin with, but it still feels like it goes to quickly. It passes him by, and then he’s there, alone, in an empty tub.

 

He wills his body to move, but it won’t. All he can do is stare at the heels of his feet and wonder when his executive dysfunction took over his life.

 

━━━━━

 

It's almost 12:20 pm when Richie walks up to the corner cafe that his date is at. The door itself is directly on the corner of the street, angled sideways and with white paneling around the frame. A small window box sits above it and small vines pour over the side, the roots almost long enough to drape over the top of the door. Dark cherry wood walls extend from the white entrance, and the windows are almost opaque after years of freezing over.

 

A small bell rings as he opens the door, a familiar comfort that Richie associates with Saturday mornings. 

 

"Look who actually showed up."

 

Richie looks in the direction of the voice, knowing exactly which table it’s coming from. He grins in Stan’s direction and saunters over, hands thrown to his sides and shoulders shrugging, all of which is  _ supposed _ to be creating an innocent look for him. "You say that like you don't know what time I'm gonna show up, Stanley." It doesn’t really work.

  
"I do it on principle."

 

Stan cracks a smile, though - until Richie pulls out a chair and flips it around to sit on it backwards. His arms are loosely crossed in front of him and his head is tilted, like he’s waiting for Stan to say something but knows that nothing said could ever touch him.

 

“You’re incorrigible.”

 

“It’s endearing, pal.”

 

The waitress brings over their food soon after that. Richie smiles at her and thanks her, as if she isn’t used to his antics by now. He doesn’t even need to question how she got his order right without offering them menus - she knows them both, and if she hadn’t, Stan would have known what to order for him.

 

God, does he love having friends.

 

He breaks the amicable silence that builds up while they eat with what’s supposed to be a question. “I have a proposal for you, Stanley.”

 

“Oh, good. Your proposals always go  _ so  _ well.”

 

“Now don’t get all up and in a fuss, good chap! This one is top notch, I tell you,” Richie says, sitting up straighter and scolding his face into an almost pouty, serious expression that’s supposed to match his terrible British accent. He even adds a raised eyebrow  for dramatic effect.

 

“So help me god-”

 

“That’s not really your cup of tea, is it?” The awful comeback is even worse when paired with the horrible accent, and Stan can feel a headache coming on  _ already.  _

 

“Stop with the god damn British accent and I’ll let you tell me this proposal, Richie.” Stan’s holding the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his pointer finger, eyes closed tight.

 

Richie all but leaps up excitedly. “Deal!” Stan is, fist and foremost, grateful that the British accent is actually gone, and that it wasn’t replaced by an even  _ worse _ accent. “So, I had this idea, well, I had this thing planned a few days ago and  _ that  _ gave me the idea-”

 

Stan doesn’t even look up. “Get to it, Tozier.”

 

“I want Bill to design some posters for  _ Tower of Babble _ .”

 

Stan tries to look displeased and disinterested every time he hears the name of Richie and Mike’s band, but there’s always a sliver of a smile shining through the hard downward press of his lips. That’s what he’s doing now, suppressing a smile. The name is too perfect for even Stan to pass up. The historical reference for Mike is obvious, but then you attend one single show and you realize how babble is spelt and you think to yourself  _ oh god, does Richie Fucking Tozier ever shut the hell up. _

 

So it’s pretty perfect, and Stan knows so.

 

But then Stan processes what Richie’s asking, and Stan sort of cringes at that. To his credit, he looks more sorry than disgusted, and Richie tries not to let himself look disappointed already. “I really think Bill is above doing work for exposure, Rich.”

 

“We’d pay him.”

 

Stan looks a little stunned at that, and a little pleasantly surprised, too. Like he wasn’t expecting Richie to ever say something so grown up. “But you already have someone who does them for free.”

 

“Yeah, and they aren’t good for anything except slapping up on a wall. I love basement gigs, Stan, you know I do,” Stan gives him a very unfortunate nod, “but we have a real gig coming up in a month or so, and I want that to  _ work.  _ I want there to be more of those.”

 

“Can’t say I thought you had it in you, Richie.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get soft on me. Is a month in advance enough notice for him? Especially with the move?” 

 

Stan shrugs, not seeming bothered. “I don’t really know his process well enough to tell you, but I can ask. I  _ do  _ know that he’s going to want to actually see one of your shows before he makes the poster, though.”

 

Richie’s entire face lights up. “Bring him next Saturday! He’ll be here, right? He doesn’t need to be unpacked to come to a basement gig.”

 

“You know I don’t go to those.”

 

Richie throws his head back and sighs dramatically. “Fine! You don’t have to come. Have Bill bring the roommate he’s dragging with him all the way from Maine.”

 

Stan’s expression is pinched. “I really don’t think it would be ‘his thing’ if’ I’m being honest.” Stan, bless his heart, actually makes finger quotations in the air as he speaks. But he doesn’t say no, and that, to Richie, is a yes.

 

“Just ask! It’ll be great, I promise you.”

 

“You’re shit at keeping promises, you know.”

 

“Yeah, but it’s the thought that counts?” Stan throws a balled up napkin right into Richie’s face, and Richie doesn’t even stop to readjust his glasses before firing back. The rest of their brunch passes quickly, and Richie leaves the cafe with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face.

 

Something productive. At least today he did something productive.

 

It would have to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Stan Uris with my whole heart, and Richie does too.
> 
> But we get to meet someone very special in the next chapter!!
> 
> Come say hello over at donvex.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first multichaptered fic! I'm really excited to be sharing this with you guys, I've been planning this out for so long.
> 
> Chapters are probably going to be slow to update, maybe around two weeks each? I can't give a definite answer, because I've written some parts out already, but I _am_ in school, so I have to prioritize my workload.
> 
> Your feedback means so much to me! All comments are appreciated, or come say hi over on my tumblr. donvex.tumblr.com


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